Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity - by Rory Sutherland

Advertising expert Rory Sutherland criticizes our current, logic-oriented zeitgeist. The sole focus on logic, in his view, obscures our vision of alternative solutions. Approaches to things in the real world can also be achieved through "magic". Formal logic is merely the framework. It is the irrational, creative, and unconscious that creates the world around us. Something seems irrational because we do not recognize the deeper intentions of people or understand the evolution behind it. Individual things are necessary at specific times, but not most of the time. To rationalize them away because they seem irrational is dangerous. The logical world offers only a small number of tools. Many tools lie outside of it, which some of our fellow human beings, with their narrow view, fail to recognize.